Darvis Arcom
Character Traits Homeworld: Grumptious Cluster, Planet Rodonos Species: Near-Human Growing Up: "Child Con Artist", "Robotic Legs" Starting Out: "Traveling salesmen of stolen hacking tech", "Learned Pilot Skills" Moment of Crisis: "Close run in with Brain Slug", "Lonely, needs a crew" Sidetracked: "Discovered power behind hacking tech", "Connections at a price" On Your Own: "Has a modest ship in need of crew", "Finding more about Rich's Family" Skills *5 - Communications *4 - Pilot *4 - Resolve *3 - Stealth *3 - Charm *3 - Computer *2 - Brokerage *2 - Energy Weapons *2 - Culture/Tech *2 - Assets *1 - Alertness *1 - Intimidation *1 - Bereaucracy *1 - Aircraft *1 - Stamina Stress Tracks Health: 4 Composure: 5 Wealth: 4 Stunts #Military Grade Electronic Warfare #Owns a Transport Ship (T2 Trader) #Portable EMP History Childhood Darvis Arcom was born on the Planet Rodonos in galactic year 69XX. Rodonos is in the Grumptious super-cluster. Born to Lusda and Fursty Arcom, Darvis was the couple's first and only child. They lived in the famous lower levels of the Rodonos sector C, a place notorious for heavy drug trafficking and tyrannical mob lords. Very little of the CoreClose areas are patrolled by police, so, in order to survive, Darvis's family had to become involved in the local black markets, or pay hefty collections to the multiple powers in the area. Darvis' father quickly turned to an alliance with a local narcotics importer. The man known only as G.P., allowed Darvis' family some basic protection from local violence and gave them a decent life. Mr. Arcom quickly rose through the ranks to become G.P.'S lieutenant, causing him to become more involved in "collections". Nobody knows what really happened to Mr. Arcom, but after a long trip away from his family, he came back heavily addicted to drugs. Things quickly got out of hand as his addiction began to interfere with his business transactions. Meanwhile, Arcom's mother, having started a local underground gambling ring, began to make more money each night than her husband. In a world like lower Sector C, beginning a gambling ring is like opening a earth Burger king across the street from the McDonalds headquarters. However, as the Arcom family was kept in the dark mostly about the interactions between their sponsor and local gangs, they were oblivious to the stir it had made in local economies. People were talking, and it was not good talk. After 1 year of extremely lucrative business for their gambling set-up, the Arcom family decided that they could handle themselves, and asked to become independent from G.P.. To their surprise, G.P. Allowed them to leave his service and continue their operations without any consequence. What he didn't tell them was that he would be leaving the planet shortly. He had gotten sloppy and accidentally done dealings with a corrupt policeman who had then been uncovered and prosecuted. He knew if he didn't escape in time, he would be implicated in the trial. So he left the Arcoms on their own, alone and unprotected. Only 6 days after he left, G.P.'S enemies descended upon the remains of G.P.'s infrastructure that had been set up, and many quarrels broke out. One such quarrel involved a local gang attempting to gain control of the Arcom's operation. When they tried to assert their own control over the gambling ring, things quickly escalated and the gang leader of the Lon’de gang sent a hit squat to the Arcom residence. Realizing their fate, the Arcom parents took up arms at their home, but were tra gically gunned down by energy weapons. In the fray, young Darvis was hit severely hard in the legs by an energy blast. He lost the use of both legs shortly after the battle. With his parent dead, Darvis, now only 9 years old was forced to live, crippled, on the streets of Rodonos. He spent several months begging on the streets, for some, this was considered a steady living, for Darvis, it was hell. He quickly developed sly techniques to get people to give him money. However, his innocent boy-like charm only worked on the humanoid species, which makes up only 49 percent of Sector C. In response, Darvis started getting more involved in his tricks to begging. He began to collect day-old news holo's he found discarded by the casinos and selling them at the star-ports for a quick buck. Suddenly, looking around him he saw endless ways to profit. By exploiting his handicap, he managed to steal a high quality hover chair to replace his crutches. He continued to exploit the immense amount of waste generated by the casinos, and as he got older, about 13, he began to bribe the disposal workers to give him all the discarded hardware that came from the casinos gambling machines. After amassing a huge number of chips, he was able to sell them to a local programmer named Dr. Fraddic to try to reverse engineer them in order to create hacking materials. As the years went by, the delicate boy trying to survive alone, became a keen young man, thriving despite his setbacks. The programmer he was working with was a secretive, untrusting old man, but as the years went by he slowly grew to like the boy, as well as value his service. And so, took him under his wing. Darvis q uickly learned the in and outs of simple programming, and as he turned 16, he was able to hack any security terminal in the sector. His relationship with the old man strengthened when his long time connection inside the casino turned him in for trying to make a profit with their discarded hardware. Fraddic quickly bailed him out, and they re-affirmed their paternal bond as he insisted that the boy move out of the dangerous apartment he had been squatting in and move into the small computer cluttered home that he owned. Arcom still looked young and fresh faced at 16, and so he was able to play the part of a child easily. He began developing elaborate ways of cheating gamblers out of their winnings. His favorite one was when he set up a false slot machine out in the far reaches of the city of slots in one of the casinos. He would wait for a big roller to leave the casino, and walk near him. Then, whispering to a partner in crime, he would brag quietly about his fool proof slot machine hack in order to lure them over. Once he had their attention, he would play them to try and get them to ask what he was talking about. His eyes would dart around and he would say "let me show you mister!". After bringing the mark over to his hacked slot machine, he would wave a small sleek looking device over the credit recepticle, and pull the lever, and it would roll, winning him hundreds of credits every time. Then he would try and leave. Almost every time, the mark would ask to buy the device and Arcom's silence. He would always oblige, but at a price. 10,000 in chips. In reality, the small device was a worthless piece of hardware.This con was only one of many of Arcom's creations. Darvis continued to supply the old man with a multitude of computer chips discarded by the many casinos in the area. Arcom was never sure what he was working on, only that it was his "life's work". The old man would work hundreds of hours a week in his lab, dissecting tiny circuits components of ping-pong table sized computer chips. He was old and frail, but still steady with his trusty sodering iron. He loved Darvis as a son and knew that the boy was the only one who would receive his legac y. When he turned 18, Darvis had an encyclopedic knowledge of hacking and programming knowledge, as well as how to how to fly the Doctor's shuttle, that he took from the upper level casinos to his house in sector C. One day, after a particularly good haul, he heard the old man yelling and sputtering in his lab. Arcom came down, expecting the worse, but instead saw the old man standing in the lab with a small computer chip at arms length. "This is it!" he said. He took the chip into his back room, and began working furiously for days. Finally a week later he called Darvis into his lab, and showed him a large makeshift terminal, covered in thousands of tiny computer chips suspended on the walls from the ceiling to the floor, all centered around a single screen. He explained that this contraption was his life's work, and that it would only work once. Without telling Darvis what it would do, he asked him to press the single button labeled "Launch" on the console. As he did, the computer began to hum and a strange view came up on the screen. The page was labeled "Acquired assets" and it had a list of hundreds of millions of names, bank accounts and a single number. Some of the rows contained the name, bank account and a number as high as 600,000,000 and some only 10,000. As he watched, the numbers started to drop to zero. the list sped by, as it went through A, B, C and so on. "That will teach t hem to fuck with Dr. Fraddic" he said coyly. Darvis realized that he was instantaneously absolving every customer of a major casino central computer of their debt, and deleting the files as well. 10 hours later the list was complete, and the Doctor informed Darvis that his mission on the planet was complete, and perhaps his life as well. He handed Darvis an envelope and left in his small shuttle, succumbing to his life long illness in peace, knowing that he had done right in his life. Inside the envelope, there was a small certificate with coordinates scrawled across the top, and a letter. The certificate was to a SkyClose medical center, a full dual bio-robotic leg implant, fully paid and arranged by Dr. Fraddic for the next day. The letter simply said "Take these and walk somewhere else" With a scribble of a signature that the boy had grown to know well over the years. New Beginings Having gotten used to his new legs, Darvis' first goal was to find himself a ship to get off Rodonos. He quickly liquidated his assets, including the small residence that the doctor had left to him. A core close ship yard was his next stop, not being an engineer to any stretch of the imagination, he searched for a functional ship. The amount of money he had made over the years, along with his new income from the property got him a heafty sum of Grumps, the system's currency. The first ship he spotted was an old transit vessel, filled with cloaking devices, but very little room. He moved on to search the lower levels of thsi ship yard, and to his dismay found that the "small" trader had a deep underground cavern filled with stolen, old, and outdated ships as far as the eye could see. It was diimly lit and the celing was only as high as the tallest ship, only about 200 feet high. The view was stunning. However, he wondered how he could fly any ship out of the hanger. After asking the owner of the yard, he found out that he would have to take the ship apart and reassemble it himself if he wanted to take it. Luckly this afforded him a huge discount on a ship, as most customers failed to reassemble the ships. Scouring through the miles of ships, Darvis spotted a gem. It was a beat up looking T2 Trader vessel. Painted wit electro static red, the ship looked like an ancient sports car that someone's grandfather had hid away in a barn. It might have been outdated, but it was a beauty in its time. It was even fitted with a sleek set of foldable wings that allowed it to land on world and fly off world. He asked the attendent if it worked, and the woman looked at it and gasped. She explained that a famous mob boss had stashed that ship here many years ago, in order to hide his stash of various illegeal items. However, the mob boss had died only a year ago, and it had been abandoned ever since. The technitian explained that she would give Darvis a good prive if he would take it off her hands. 300,000 grumps. Darvis agreed and got to work. For several months, Darvis returned to the yard daily and slowly took apart the ship peice by peice, and re-assembled each part in the small hangar owned by the ship technitian. Eager to get rid of the ship, the woman helped Darvis and taught him many valuable techniques in repairing, building, and expecially flying ships like these through the cosmos and the slip stream. Darvis practiced on a simulator that all ship salesmen were required to have (in order to judge the capability of the prospective pilot). He used his extensive knowledge of electronics to learn every detail of the ships interior. He even made a few important security upgrades to block against tracking and hacking attempts. After 3 months in the claustrophobic area, he finally built his own ship. He called it The Snap Dragon.